Max’s investments, not to mention the lumber company.”
“Paul liked Buck,” I say, even as a disturbing thought rises in my mind.
“He did,” Jet agrees. “Paul always contributed to his causes, the Indian powwows and stuff. On the other hand, business is business. And Paul has the connections to farm out violence if he wants to.”
“ShieldCorp?”
She nods and leads me toward her bra. “He stays in contact with all those guys.”
“Jet, does it strike you as strange that Paul suddenly tells me he’s suspicious about you having an affair within hours of Buck dying?”
This question sends her into that state where her mind is working at a speed beyond my capacity. “Because you’re the most likely to dig deep into his death,” she says. “He throws out a shiny object to distract you.”
“Right.”
“For him to expect that to work, he’d have to know you and I are in fact having an affair.”
“What if he does know?”
She shakes her head, but in her eyes I see a shadow of doubt. Still looking concerned, she bends to pick up her bra, then slips her left arm into the strap. “You want a last look before they’re gone?”
“Don’t need one. They’ve been imprinted on my mind since I was fourteen.”
She gives me an appreciative smile. “They’re a little different now. Gravity sucks.”
I look down at her breasts, at the dark nipples that have captivated me since I was a boy. “Not so different.”
“White lies.” She fastens the bra, then skips ten feet ahead of me to retrieve her blouse. After she buttons it, she reaches into her pants pocket and takes out a nondescript black cell phone.
“This one’s yours. The number to mine is already programmed on speed dial.”
“When did you do that?” I ask, taking the phone from her.
“Sitting at red lights on my way out. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”
Just like everything else. “About tonight,” I say hesitantly. “The party.”
“What?”
“We need to do the best acting of our lives. No secret touches, no freighted glances, no double entendres—not even if we pass each other in an empty hallway.”
“You think you need to tell me that?”
My warning obviously irritated her. “I wouldn’t usually. But something changed today. I feel like the world has suddenly spun off track. It isn’t just Buck, or even Paul. This whole day, memories have been flooding over me, things I haven’t thought about for years.”
Her expression softens. “Me too, a little bit. But all Paul has on his mind right now is Jerry Lee Lewis. So relax. You know I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
With that, she kisses me lightly on the lips, then walks swiftly across the grass and into the trees.
Chapter 19
The Aurora Hotel may be the most unique building in Mississippi. In a city filled with Colonial, French, Spanish, and Greek Revival architecture, this art deco temple rises above all that like a shrine to the early twentieth century. The millionaire who built it was a victim of the Egyptomania that swept the world in the wake of the discoveries in the Valley of the Kings, and the interior of the Aurora reflected his obsession. Only the name of the hotel broke the pattern, and that was no riddle. Aurora was the owner’s daughter, so Bienville got the Aurora Hotel rather than the Isis or the Nefertiti.
A gay Bienville wag once famously said the interior of the Aurora looked as though an archaeologist had discovered a pharaoh’s tomb and set off a bomb in it rather than loot it for a museum. On the day it opened in 1928, the Aurora’s lobby had a twenty-eight-foot ceiling, and its huge brass doors were flanked by enormous marble obelisks. You couldn’t stand in any part of the hotel without seeing a pyramid, a Sphinx, a sarcophagus, scarabs, ankhs, or even canopic jars. The lobby walls were clad in relief panels with Egyptian motifs, and the walls of the upper floors were decorated with hand-painted hieroglyphics.
The main restaurant was called the Luxor, and its ceiling was supported by columns modeled after those at Karnak. In the late 1930s, the grand Osiris ballroom hosted Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, and in 1948 the rooftop Nefertiti Lounge heard Billie Holiday sing “Strange Fruit.” Ten years after that, local rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis belted out “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” in the same space. And if the rumors are true, tonight the town might get a repeat performance.
“Have you ever been inside this place?” Nadine asks as